Left Revives Issa Remark Made on This Program Way Back in October

RUSH: Hey, greetings to you, music lovers, thrill-seekers, conversationalists and fun lovers all across the fruited plain. Well, you know who I am. You've waited with bated breath for this day. I've been gone for not quite two weeks almost. It's a lot of golf stories and a lot of NFL games to catch up on, so get ready. I could not believe they canceled an NFL game because of the forecast of snow, and Governor Ed Rendell, a liberal Democrat, sounding like me, sounding like a strong conservative guy. Where has Rendell been all of his life with this kind of attitude? A nation of wusses, chickification of the league, right on the money. Anyway, great to be back, it truly is. The number is 800-282-2882, and the e-mail address, ElRushbo@eibnet.com.

The challenge for me on a day like this, I've got so much here. I mean, I've got sound bites from when I was gone, sound bites from the weekend and yesterday. I've got so much to do here the challenge is organizing it all and trying to get it all in in the first hour. It's an editing nightmare. So many things are at the top of my mind. For the past two weeks I have lived like a typical Barack Obama Democrat voter. I was completely oblivious to the news and the real world. I literally did not pay any attention to any news whatsoever. So I'm going through overload. I mean the last 24 hours I've been cramming. I've got so many audio sound bites here that Cookie has given me I could spend the first hour of this program on sound bites about me when I was gone. I ran this by the staff and they said, "Oh, you gotta do it." I said, "You know, people get upset when I talk about me all the time." (interruption) They don't get upset when I talk about football. Four or five people get upset when I talk about football. Football, look at the ratings. Everybody's watching football. It is as big a news story as anything else that's out there.

Try the bird business. I must have more stories about the massive bird death and fish death than any other news story in the stack. Everybody at every news agency is writing stories about this, and one of the things that's missing from all these stories is what about the cold weather affecting birds? It's fish that are dying all over. Look at this. "Scientists say fireworks caused huge bird kill in Arkansas," but a lot of birds died in Kentucky, too. "Dead Fish Cover 20 Miles of the Arkansas River." "Tens of Thousands of Small Fish Die in Chesapeake Bay." "Kentucky Woman Reports Dozens of Dead Birds in Her Yard." Is all of this connected to government testing? "One Hundred Tons of Dead Fish Wash Up on Brazil's Shores." And a lot of this happened on New Year's Eve so a lot of people are wondering if there may be something cosmic about all of this. Dawn, a quick question here. How many birds do you think die annually because of windmills? One hundred thousand. One hundred thousand birds every year killed by windmill blades. We don't hear about that because windmills are liberal ideas. But now you have birds for whatever reason flying at each other, getting thrown into a tizzy because of fireworks or what have you, which it's not the first time fireworks have gone off at night so it really is something mysterious.

But let's get to some of the substantive stuff. While I'm on vacation, and I literally was minding my own business, I wasn't bothering anybody, I was miles away from Washington, DC, and all of a sudden news stories -- and I got the sound bites here to prove it -- news stories started popping up everywhere about Obama being called one of the most corrupt presidents in modern times on my radio program. Now, the critics are out there sneering that such language is typical of the demonizing talk radio political culture. But the comment was from last October. It was Darrell Issa on this program, and it was last October before Democrats got skunked in the elections. Now it's January, it's being treated like it's breaking news. So Issa, the incoming House Oversight Government Reform Committee chairman, called into the program October 19th, and the reason he called in is because I was all concerned at what I was hearing about Republicans planning on compromising and meeting the Democrats halfway. This is before the election. This was not what voters wanted to hear from Republicans.

So I'm railing about this, and the congressman called. He wanted to go on the air to reassure you that Republicans will take their oversight role seriously. During the call, he ticked off various instances of the regime bypassing the law and the Constitution, something they've done ever since they've been in office, with not a shred of concern from Democrats in the House. Nobody was concerned about it. And what prompted Congressman Issa to call was my concern based on news reports that he and other Republicans were planning on compromising with Obama instead of standing up to him. Now, what bothers the left is not what Darrell Issa said on this program. What bothers them, what worries them is that Issa and a lot of House Republicans will use their newly acquired power to finally investigate Obama. We've got sound bites here from all the usual suspects in the Drive-By Media trying to intimidate the Republicans into not doing it. "It backfired when you investigated Clinton." F. Chuck Todd out there saying, (paraphrasing) "Do you really want to look in the past? In your first 25 days in office in the new House, do you really want to spend it looking backwards?" And of course this is an attempt here to intimidate Republicans into forgetting all this and moving forward and making sure Obama and his regime are not investigated, forgetting conveniently of course that that's entirely what the election was about, repealing health care.

We've gotta look back because there's a lot of stuff that needs to be fixed, and the cavalry arrives this month, and I still don't think people understand exactly who this cavalry is, but it's not the usual suspects showing up. These people are committed Tea Party type people, they are hell-bent on their purpose and accomplishing it, and there's nothing typical about these new arrivals and this freshman class in terms of being typical and wanting to just meld into the typical Washington political culture. So what really bothers the left here is that these investigations will take place and that the breaks will be applied to Obama's extra-constitutional power grabs. And, by the way, do you know -- I'm sure you heard this while I was gone, well, maybe you didn't. What reason is there to listen to the radio when I'm not here? So you may not have -- he-he-he-he -- you may not have heard this, but Ezra Klein, who is I guess a golden boy at the Washington Post, one of these young kids, a 24-year-old supposedly brilliant guy, a blogger has essentially said, "The Constitution, what's that? It's outta date. It's over a hundred years old. It can't possibly be binding. It can't possibly mean what the Republicans say. It's just old hat, it's old-fashioned," and that refrain's been picked up by a lot of people on the left, which is tantamount proof that the Democrats don't care about it and they're doing everything they can to be extra-constitutional, because it gets in their way.

The biggest impediment to Barack Obama is the Constitution of the United States. It's the biggest roadblock in his way, and it's true of the American left at large. So now this thrust, this effort here, "Ah, the Constitution, ah, old-fashioned, doesn't apply, it's irrelevant," it's all the proof you need that there's a whole bunch of extra-constitutionality going on out there, and the media and the Democrats are scared to death that Issa is serious about this, is gonna dig in and stop all these extra-constitutional power grabs. That's why Issa is all of a sudden under attack, in January, for something that he said back in October on this program. As for me, you libs, go ahead, keep the mindless attacks coming. They haven't stopped me so far, and they never will. This is last Sunday morning on CNN's State of the Union, fill-in host Ed Henry and Darrell Issa have this exchange about Issa's remarks about Obama on my show back in October.

HENRY: Right before the election you went on Rush Limbaugh's radio program. You have since said you regret saying that --

ISSA: I corrected what I meant to say. You know, on live radio with Rush going back and forth -- and, by the way, that was because Rush had me on to answer the question of about coming together, having compromise. He didn't like the compromise word when I said, we're gonna agree to disagree and then we're gonna find the kind of common ground, the kind of compromise that makes and gets things done. In saying that this is one of the most corrupt administrations, which is what I meant to say there, when you hand out a trillion dollars in TARP just before this president came in, most of it unspent, a trillion dollars, nearly, in stimulus that this president asked for plus this huge expansion in health care and government, it has a corrupting effect.

RUSH: So trying to walk it back just a little.

By the way, have you heard the latest on the reason for the bird deaths? They believed global warming and they didn't migrate south. (laughing) They didn't think they had to go south for the warm weather, so poof, they stayed where it was cold and they fell out of the sky. I know we shouldn't laugh about it, but any opportunity I have to tweak the left, I'll do it.

So here's Issa trying to walk all this back. Now, just to set the record straight, I have no problem with Congressman Issa, literally no problem. He called the program wanting to get on. He called and wanted to get on to set something straight, to correct something I had said. This is a little illustration of how this kind of thing works. I was watching an NFL game once, and the announcer crew, forget who they were, they were the B or C group, it wasn't the hot, top dogs. "Whoa, lo and behold, look who just walked into our booth here, why, it's Dick Vermeil. What's up, coach?" Vermeil said, "I didn't just walk in here. You invited me in here." (laughing) The announcers tried to make it look like they were so popular that Vermeil was walking down the hall and saw these guys, "Ah, I'm gonna pop in and say hi to the announcers." And he didn't play the game. He said, "I'm only here because you invited me here," and the B announcer crew, "Never mind, coach, great to have you in here," blah, blah.

So I was minding my own business and Congressman Issa called me 'cause he wanted to set the record straight as far as he was concerned about something that had been said on the program. I was mad at him over compromise is sort of right. But when I hear Republicans say, "We want to work together to get things done," with any liberal Democrat, particularly Obama, red flags go up. There's no working with these guys. There's beating these guys, which happened in November. And what's going on now is an attempt to erase that, the fact that there was a big win. The mainstream media is trying to erase that fact. So Sunday morning on Face the Nation, the fill-in host was Harry Smith, and he talked to Darrell Issa and they had this exchange again about Issa on my radio program in October.

SMITH: I want to go back to something you told Rush Limbaugh not so long ago that you thought President Obama's one of the most corrupt presidents in modern history --

ISSA: But you know I walked -- I walked -- I walked back very quickly and said it's about the money the administration has had in a loose fashion. It's more about Congress' mistake in funding.

ISSA: Time and time again what we've seen with the Obama administration is they played fast and loose with the walking-around money Congress gave 'em.

RUSH: Congressman Issa, look, I have no business here to be handing out advice, but no matter what you do, sir, they're gonna hate you. No matter what you do they're gonna twist and turn what you say. I mean this happened in October and they couldn't have cared less. Now it's January, it's the eve of you guys being sworn in and you assuming the chairmanship, and now all of a sudden you are some reprobate. Well, you're always gonna be a reprobate to these people in the media. There's nothing you can say. It's not worth trying to tie yourself in knots, congressman, to please 'em because it isn't gonna happen, you are the enemy. It's like I told the freshman class in 1994, "The media doesn't like the fact that you won. They're not happy you're here. They're not gonna treat you like winners. They're not gonna afford you the respect that they offer people like Debbie Wasserman Schultz or other B players. They're not gonna afford you any respect at all. They are gonna try to humiliate you, embarrass you, and try to get you to take back things that you meant, that you said, through intimidation or what have you. So you may as well just say what you think."

There's no question this administration's corrupt. Why do they care about it all of a sudden? They fear somebody's out to prove it, and actually do more than prove it, to actually act on it. Here's Margaret Carlson last night with Maude Behar on the Headline News channel. Maude Behar said, "What's he up to, Issa? Is he looking for a little time in the sun or something trying to improve his image in his party, what's going on here?"

CARLSON: In fairness to Congressman Issa, he was bullied by Rush Limbaugh when he said the thing about corruption, and no Republican wants to go up against Rush Limbaugh. Even if you have an investigatory commission, you are nothing compared to Rush Limbaugh, and they all know it.

RUSH: Okay, there we have it. So he was bullied by me. He has an excuse, you see. If he'll just change his mind, if he'll just walk it back, they'll let him get away with having it blamed on me, that I bullied him into saying something he doesn't really believe, that I, a harmless lovable little fuzzball, El Rushbo, on the radio intimidated a congressional committee chairman. And as long as he flies with that, then they'll give him a pass. Here's Chris Matthews last night on Hardball, just to show you the template that's been created here.

MATTHEWS: When you say "the most corrupt government," you are pandering to Rush Limbaugh. That's not true. This president's clean.

RUSH: (laughing) And articulate. You forgot articulate.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: By the way, just for review, here is what Congressman Issa said on my program back on October the 19th. Here's what he said: "No. I expect him to take a little while to figure out that the Presidential Records Act means they can no longer use Google to do politicking inside the White House in violation of the law. They can no longer ignore the Hatch Act violations they've been doing. They can no longer do Sestak, Romanoff type deals with federal taxpayers' dollars. I expect those changes to happen. And, you know, there will be a certain degree of gridlock as the president adjusts to the fact that he has been one of the most corrupt presidents in modern times."

This is Issa on the program. Now, there's a news story here from yesterday from the Weekly Standard. Remember, what did he first say here? "I expect him to take a little while to figure out that the Presidential Records Act means they can no longer use Google to do politicking inside the White House in violation of the law." Health and Human Services is paying Google with your taxpayer dollars to alter Obamacare search results. Now, you can buy search results from Google, but the government's doing it with your taxpayer dollars. You try typing "Obamacare" into Google, and you'll find the first entry is now the Obama regime's Healthcare.gov website. If you don't like that result, you probably hate the fact that you're paying for it. You get the same result if you type in "Obamacare facts." So you search "Obamacare," you're gonna get the White House propaganda version.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I want to go back a little bit here to this Google thing, 'cause the very first thing that Congressman Issa said in describing the corruption of this regime back on this program in October was totally ignored by "our friends," as they say, in the State-Controlled Media. But now here on the eve of Issa becoming a committee chairman, the Oversight Committee, all of a sudden, "Why, that was one of the most hateful, one of the most controversial, one of the most impolitic things anybody can ever say!" and they're desperately trying to make him walk it back, and he's getting close. "No. I expect him to take a little while to figure out that the Presidential Records Act means they can no longer use Google to do politicking inside the White House in violation of the law."

Weekly Standard: "The brazenness of the [regime] never ceases to amaze. Try typing 'Obamacare' into Google, and you'll find that the first entry is now the Obama [regime]'s www.healthcare.gov" website. "You'll get the same paid-for result if you type in 'Obamacare facts,' 'Obamacare summary,' 'Obamacare info,' 'Obamacare overview,' 'Obamacare questions,' 'Obamacare explanation,' 'Obamacare basics,' 'Obamacare pros and cons,' 'Obamacare and elderly,' and even 'Obamacare and abortion.' For each of these search terms, and many others, the [regime]'s site comes up first, as a paid entry. But it doesn't come up if you type in 'ObamaCare repeal.' Politico's Ben Smith, in a post entitled 'HHS Buys "ObamaCare,"' quotes an official from Secretary Kathleen Sebelius's Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), who confirms that this clear attempt to influence what Americans read about Obamacare does, indeed, represent your tax dollars at work. ...

"You won't find anything on the HHS site about how the Medicare chief actuary projects that Obamacare would bend the cost curve upward by $311 billion by 2019..." Look, I don't even want to get into the details. We all know the disaster that Obamacare is. We all know that the large percentage of the American people want no part of it. We all know the mood, the sentiment of this country is to repeal it -- and guess what? Guess what, ladies and gentlemen? January 12th, as many of you know now by heart, is my birthday. House Republicans have set January 12th as their day to vote on a repeal of Obama's health care law. Good! They're probably doing this knowing it's my birthday. It's probably the House Republicans sending me a birthday gift by doing this on my birthday.

As I said, "Make this guy veto this over and over and over again." If they're looking for bonus points for doing this on my birthday, then they're gonna get bonus points for doing it on my birthday. I mean, what greater gift could the House Republicans give me than to send this bill up there and vote on it on my birthday? As Margaret Carlson says, they're more afraid of me than they are Obama or anybody else -- and this proves it, doesn't it? Ha-ha. At any rate, not to get sidetracked here, the regime is paying Google with your tax dollars for search results. That's corruption, because the regime's version of this is abject lies. The regime's version of their own health care bill is lies. Everything Obama said to sell this thing is lies or misinformation -- and a lot of people, a majority of the American people, know it and understand it now.

The Democrats know it, so they've got their own press conferences today warning the Republicans not to repeal it. "You better not do this!" A battle is shaping up here. But that's the first thing Issa mentioned when talking about the corruption, and he did go on to say (again, to repeat what he said), "They can no longer do Sestak, Romanoff type deals with federal taxpayers' dollars. I expect those changes to happen. And, you know, there will be a certain degree of gridlock as the president adjusts to the fact that he has been one of the most corrupt presidents in modern times." He didn't talk about "administrations." He was talking about Obama the president.

"He has ignored the very laws that he said were so vital when he was a senator. And, you know, he's going to have to come back a different direction. Now, at the end of the day John Boehner is going to have to figure out how we have a budget and appropriations. In my case, I head the committee that's all about making sure that the administration obeys the law, that waste, fraud, and abuse not be tolerated, which obviously is not the case now, but that's the change that's going to happen from my position. I'm looking forward to it." This is from October the 19th. This is what Congressman Issa said, and now they're just trying to make all kinds of controversy. "I can't believe he would say this kind of thing. It's horrible! Why, it's not right for a congressman to talk about a president this way. It's horrible!"

They're trying to get him to walk this back.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Is it corrupt, folks...? Is it corrupt to ban oil drilling even when judges have ruled that it's illegal to ban oil drilling? Is it corrupt to just ignore judicial rulings? Is it corrupt to pretend the Constitution doesn't exist? You know, in talking about the corruption of this administration, it really would take less time to detail where they're not. What about all of the czars? Now you might be saying, "Well, Rush, you're playing fast and loose here with the definition of 'corruption.'" I don't know what it is when you have a bunch of agency heads about whom no one knows anything. We don't know how they were selected, do not know what they're earning, and do not know what they are doing. These are people that are not confirmed by the Senate as are cabinet members.

These are people that have no oversight whatsoever. No accountability. We don't know what they're doing. They are not provided for in the executive branch by virtue of the Constitution. Is that corrupt? Well, it's certainly fast and loose. We've not had an administration like this one. We've had liberals, we've had members of Congress like this, but we've never had this kind of concentrated leftist power before, and the American people see it. I think this is a great thing, by the way, that more and more people are waking up to it and seeing it. After the election 2008, many of you were in a funk thinking, "Oh, my gosh, we've lost the country," because many of us assume that everybody is just as informed as we are about things.

We just assume that this is what they wanted.

Then we came to realize that this election had so little to do with substance. It was all about theatrics and image, PR, propaganda, packaging -- and in some cases peoples' votes were all about them, this historical notion that we can somehow eliminate our "original sin of slavery." If we would just elect a black president, it would all be done! We could wipe out racism. People actually believed that. People actually believed that they were voting in such a way as to make them better people ("I'm a good person; I'm not a racist; I voted for the first black president") regardless what the guy stood for. There was quite a bit of that, and now with the election of 2010, we have more Republicans in Washington than at any time since 2004-2006 -- in Congress, I mean -- and that's not insignificant nor is it a coincidence.